COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A panel of experts convened by Columbus Collaboratory concluded that secure collaboration is key to keeping ahead of attackers and advancing cybersecurity goals. The sharing of information trends and ideas empowers companies to be more nimble, to detect threats earlier, and to share best practices while preserving human and financial capital. This assessment is consistent with a new survey of security professionals across the country, which found that a strong majority support the need for collaboration to enhance cyber defenses.

"The rapid pace of innovation in cybersecurity and technology is driving advancements in defensive strategies as well as in attacker techniques at an alarming rate," said Jason Healey, executive director of the New York Cyber Crime Task Force and a senior research member at Columbia University's School for International and Public Affairs. "Global cyber crime, competition, and conflict is driving the need for more defensible enterprises. No longer can organizations unilaterally defend their own networks. We must work together, share, cross-train and build methods and technologies to change the economic dynamic that currently favors attackers."

The Collaboratory, an advanced analytics and cybersecurity company founded by seven leading Ohio corporations across multiple industries, hosted the information security industry roundtable discussion, assembling regional business leaders and subject-matter experts. In addition to Healey, the roundtable included another member of the New York Cyber Task Force, John Carlson, chief of staff for the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), and Jeff Schmidt, the Collaboratory's vice president for cybersecurity.

"The FS-ISAC is hyper-focused on evolving the current state of threat intelligence sharing and incident response through deeper collaboration and more timely sharing of quality information among its 7,000 financial institutions in 39 countries," Carlson said. "This voluntary strength in the sharing community, including many financial institutions based in Columbus and other parts of Ohio, is helping security professionals better understand the threats and mitigate the risks from cyber attacks and data breaches."

The Collaboratory commissioned a report last month by Forrester, which surveyed the opinions of 106 security operations and threat intelligence decision makers throughout the United States. Eighty-seven percent of all respondents said they believe they spend too much time, money and resources to adopt new cybersecurity technologies. The same percentage of professionals rely heavily on their peers when evaluating, purchasing and implementing security technologies. The areas where respondents think collaboration is deemed most valuable include: cybersecurity strategy, threat intelligence sharing, and vetting security investment decisions.

The importance of collaboration was underscored as the panelists uniformly expressed concern that attackers may benefit more quickly than defenders from emerging technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Accordingly, enterprises are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to improve their defensive posture.

The Collaboratory announced its next member roundtable will take place in February. Roundtables help Collaboratory members reap the benefits of participation in an Information Sharing and Analysis Organization infrastructure.

"In 2018, our members will continue to share their organizational pains – sorting through massive data volume generated by internal and external networks – to identify threats, manage vulnerabilities and assess risk to their technology, employees, customer data and intellectual property," said the Collaboratory's Schmidt. "Through these discussions, our members have accelerated process improvement and advanced the development and deployment of purpose-built solutions designed to protect their operations and infrastructure with greater confidence and assurance."

About Columbus Collaboratory

Columbus Collaboratory is a rapid innovation company founded by leading companies in seven different industries (American Electric Power, Battelle, Cardinal Health, LBrands, Huntington Bancshares, Nationwide Insurance, OhioHealth) that delivers business value to its members through advanced analytics and cybersecurity solutions. Our unique model surfaces shared, complex challenges and operationalizes cognitive and machine learning technologies for our member companies and the broader market. We make this possible by capitalizing on the collective know-how possessed by our team, collaborating companies, and partners. As a result, we strengthen Ohio's IT and analytics workforce and secure the region's future as a national leader in technology innovation. For more information, please visit www.columbuscollaboratory.com and follow @cbuscollab.